By the hundreds tundra swans descend
like parachutes deploying
in blizzard snow and wind.
They tumble through the air
then canopy their wings
and toggle best they can
in whiteout conditions.
Seeing them is like hallucinating,
except they come every year
to the same fields behind a police academy
in Aylmer, Ontario,
and sometimes in bitter springs
they come out of the northern sky
like a late blizzard,
like driving snow
and meet the earth running.